Severus Snape and the Secret Vows
by Profsprout
Summary: Behind the scenes of the Half Blood Princewarning: HBP spoilers


**Severus Snape and the Secret Vows**

Dumbledore sat in his private quarters, his favorite chair drawn up before the fireplace and a small glass of mead in his hand. He stared into the fire and past it, as if watching events taking place on a screen just beyond sight.

Suddenly, as if in response to a silent knocking, he turned toward the door and called, "Come in, Severus."

Snape swept in, his eyes flashing as they met the headmaster's. "I cannot allow you to do this, Albus," he said. "You have no right to endanger so many in such a rash and possibly fruitless act."

Dumbledore smiled. "As always, you read my intent almost before I have decided myself." He motioned toward another chair that was set half toward the fire and half toward himself, then lifted a bottle to pour mead into a waiting glass before it. "Let us discuss this matter as you and I have discussed so many things over the years. Tell me, _Professor Snape_, how can I do otherwise?"

"I understand that we must find each horcrux and destroy it as soon as we may," Snape said. He took a seat, but did not relax, and refused with a wave of his hand when Dumbledore motioned with his head toward the glass. "Surely none knows it better than I. But it is foolish, in destroying the first, to throw away all our hope of finding the others. We would be better to locate them all and then devise a plan to destroy them."

He looked Dumbledore in the eyes. "I have bowed to your judgment in many things, Albus, and, I admit, mostly to good effect, but I reject it in this. Perhaps you need to go to the infirmary for tests."

Dumbledore took a sip of his mead and laughed. "You call me a senile old man to my face, then?" he said. "Few would dare to do so, Severus."

For a moment Snape's face was inscrutable. Then his eyes narrowed. "I do not game with you in this," he said. "I mean to stop you in your madness."

"If there were a way you could stop me," Dumbledore said quietly, "then I assure you that you would not have been able to sense my decision. I shall go to the cave and I shall take the Potter boy with me. If he perishes as well, perhaps that will be some consolation to you."

"Have _him_ drink the potion, then," Snape said, "and _you_ destroy the locket. Hogwarts cannot spare you."

"_Hogwarts_ cannot?" Dumbledore said, raising his eyebrows. "Is that how it is, then?" He settled back in his chair and pretended to stare off into the distance.

"Of course, that is not my only objection, Albus, as you well know," said Snape, irritation in his voice, "or even my main one. But I did not think you would let personal preference dissuade you at this point." He looked down then, as if studying the ornate wood inlay on the table before him.

"But, when it comes to that," he continued, "who would be my intellectual equal here if you were gone? Not McGonagall. She lacks the experience of the dark that gives our talks complexity and depth. " He looked at his hands, then at Dumbledore's face, and smirked. "And that is not all she lacks."

"You know better than I," he went on after a pause, "that none of the students, not Potter, not Longbottom or Malfoy, can understand fully the matters we have had to struggle with over the years. The closest among the students is the Granger girl, and once again, you can see the objection."

Dumbledore laughed again. "Yes, a Transgenderus Charm used on a student would be difficult for the Ministry to ignore."

Snape leaned forward, then, and put his warm hand on Dumbledore's black and withered one. "Albus," he whispered. "Alas, I cannot spare you. All the magic would be gone from my world. I would as soon eat death myself."

Dumbledore reached his good hand to under Snape's chin. "Severus," he said softly, "even death itself could not separate us. What we two have cannot be replaced, and it cannot end."

And there before the fire, with no portrait and no living thing to watch, they both leaned forward in what was clearly a familiar gesture and shared a long and silent kiss.

Gently, Dumbledore brushed Snape's black hair back along his cheek and he looked him in the eyes. "I'm so sorry," he said. "I know how hard this would be for me if it were you. You have been the source of so much of my joy and my delight. But when I return from drinking the potion, you know what you must do for me, and quickly."

Snape drew back from Dumbledore's touch, then, and turned his head away. He said nothing.

"Would you force me, then, to live through that evil transformation?" Dumbledore said. "Would you let me linger as my soul is eaten alive?"

"Even if the process were complete before I got to you," Snape said, "and I knew you had become a hollow conduit for the will of the Dark Lord, every fiber in my being would scream in protest if I raised my wand."

"Yet it will have to be swift in the end," Dumbledore said. "I hope not to have to beg you, my beloved, when the time comes. Release me if it does, in the name of all that our hearts have shared. Only you can save me, Severus. Malfoy has not the will to do it in the end. Only your swift action can save my soul from an eternity in torment."

"Yes," Snape said bitterly, "and then I will be known to everyone as the Death Eater who killed Dumbledore, the professor he believed in, but who turned on him in the final moment. Not the one who has helped you keep Hogwarts from dark influences, but the Dark Lord's dearest henchman. Not your faithful lover, but your murderer." He stood, his cape swirling from the speed of his movement, and he threw his glass into the fire. "And yet, I swear, in all the history of wizardry, no heart has been more true."

Dumbledore stood, too. "If I could spare you this, I would," he said. "I am deeply grateful to you, for all these years in which you were the only one who understood what I faced, and were the only one I could trust with all the hardest tasks. I am sorry to leave you this, the most difficult of all."

Snape paused at the door and for a moment seemed about to say something gentle, then he smirked and his eyes hardened. "Well, Albus, know this," he said. "If I hear you did anything with that Potter boy, I'll gladly kill you, potion or no."

Dumbledore smiled. This was the Severus he knew. "You need not fear on that account," he said. "I must humbly admit that in that particular field of magic, the young Weasley girl's charms are far more powerful than my own."

The smiles that accompanied their banter soon dissolved to sadness. Each bowed his head to the other, then, without another word, Snape left the apartment.

He strode through the halls toward his rooms, pausing only to kick Mrs. Norris. Professor McGonagall, who happened to be passing, said, "Really, Severus!" but he glowered at her until she decided against saying anything more.

Back in his chair before the fireplace, Dumbledore had placed the Pensieve on the table, and drawn out a memory. Once more, he relived that first glorious day, when he and Snape had walked all day by the wood and lake, talking and laughing, then retired to this very room, never giving a thought to sleep, until finally, as the first light of dawn colored the horizon, they made the secret vows that had sustained them all these years.

Then he put the thoughts and the Pensieve away, and, alone in the room, he wept.


End file.
